because I could
not bear to hear the commandments read; and yet I hated myself
for my weakness. One Sunday morning Edward said to me, across
the breakfast-table, "Pray, Ellen, have you made a vow never
to go to church of a morning?" I felt myself turning pale, but
answered quietly, "I am going now;" and I went, and God only
knows what I suffered there.

Biding grew into a passion with me at that time. There is such
excitement in the rapid motion--in the impatience of the
animal that bears one along--in the sense of power--in the
feeling of life, which is never so strong within one, as when,
over a common, or a wild muir, one can dash along at the
horse's full speed, with the wind in one's face, and the turf
under one's feet. In every weather I rode; the more heavily it
rained, the more wildly it blew, the more I enjoyed excursions
that lasted several hours, and after which I returned home,
fatigued in body, excited in mind, and able to sleep at night
from sheer exhaustion. Henry was my constant companion on
these occasions, and indulged every fancy I formed, as to the
length and direction of these excursions. He applauded my
courage when, arrested by no obstacles, I cleared fence after
fence, or waded through rapid streams, in order to arrive, a
quarter of an hour sooner, at some point I had fixed upon. His
talent for conversation was great, and he possessed the art of
captivating the attention to an extraordinary degree.
Intercourse with him became to me, in a moral point of view,
what riding was in a physical: It was an exercise of the
mental faculties, that stilled the process of self-tormenting
within me. He admired me--I saw it plainly, and far more than
he had done before the change that had come over me; at least
I fancied so; and one day, as I was turning over the leaves of
a blotting-paper book, in the library, I found the following
verses:

"She was a child, and in her dreamless eyes
There slept a world of unawakened thought--
And in her voice, her laughter, and her sighs,
No spirit lingered, and no magic wrought;
For as the haze that veils the glorious skies
At morning prime; or as the mist that lies
On ocean's might: or as the solemn hour
Of Nature's silence, when the Heavens lower,
Such was her childhood; but its hour is past;
The veil is drawn, the mist has cleared at last.
And what though with a storm! Who does not find
In wind, in waves, in Nature's wildest s